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Wednesday, 3 June 2015

Mid-Year Self Reassessment

The last few days I've been thinking about that dreaded word: burnout.

To burn out as a teacher means to have nothing left of yourself. You've given all that there is to give and you've basicallt got nothing to carry on with.

My biggest worry always is that I do too much. I do a lot because I have the time, the passion and the interest.

There is the illusion of more time because PI is over for the year. Girls Rugby has been cancelled for the year. There is no conference to organise. No immediate stress.

However, on a daily basis I help out with different things.

Offering to do one on one tech support sessions
Offering to present at upcoming conferences and PLD sessions
Sharing my ideas online
Making worksheets and infosheets for those who need them
Preparing eLearning workshops
Sharing ideas at school in meetings and f2f
Moderating twitter chats
Promoting chats and what I'm doing online
Upkeep of my portfolio, class site, eLearning hub, twitter, G+, FB, blog
Developing new collaborative and co-constructed ideas

Then of course there's my actual job of being a teacher - where I'd much rather spend all my time looking at developing my own teaching style, incorporating my ideas about tech into my class and ensuring that it is actually helping my students. All of this is burdened by the many different initiatives and admin we are required to do also.

I feel like this is the time to reassess. Is what I'm doing outside of class actually helping my students in my own classes? Surely. But I need to spend more time on me with planning, and learning how to be the best teacher I can be. I've set up easier planning with G Calendar so that's not the issue. It's not even the marking because that's doable too. It is difficult at times because I don't have access to my class except during intervals and lunch but then students come in then for help or just to talk.

What can I be doing better or at the very least differently that would make my student's outcomes better?

Ensuring more focussed assessment tasks for my juniors. Developing a method of collecting in, marking, handing back, moderating and marks being added onto KAMAR in a much more timely manner. Improving my class environment so that it's interesting and not messy. Yes - working spaces and all that - but it's still not setup how I want it. I need more time to do this. The desks have stayed in the same structure for ages now. Perhaps they need altering too.

When it comes down to it - I love teaching. I love teaching my students and my new passion is teaching other teachers and coaching them through their eLearning journey.

I just need to make it manageable. Strip it back to the bare essentials and focus on what I actually need to do and what can be organised and facilitated.

Big concerns:
Figuring out how to deliver PLD properly to the staff. Apparently it was going too fast still. And I seriously thought I was going slowly. I need stronger and more specific feedback and feedforward of what they need.
Ensuring staff know how to turn off G+ notifications and organise their Gmail so that they don't get overloaded.
Developing a shared plan in moving forward for PLD
Catching up on Interlead reflections. School wide.